Examining the Mythos

My relationship to Star Wars is longer than any relationship I have ever had except with my parents.  For several years I would have had to use the Facebook phrase "It's complicated," to describe the relationship.  I love the galaxy far, far away, and yet... yet... there was something a bit wrong.  I came to blame George Lucas, first for stubbornly refusing to make more movies after Return of the Jedi. Then, after The Phantom Menace, cursing him for making more movies, but giving whiny little Anakin and that Jar-Jar Binks buffoon more screen time than Darth Freaking Maul.  I felt like Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor and Christopher Lee would have carried those prequels so much better if only Georgie boy would have taken a deep breath and actually thought about how best to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker, rather than wallowing in sentimentality and maudlin, inexplicable mood swings.
I will be eternally grateful to George Lucas for making Star Wars a thing in the first place, but a few years back, I breathed a sigh of relief when he let go of his creative control and actually sold out to Disney.  For the first time ever, I was happy that someone "sold out to Disney." First of all, it meant we were going to get more movies, lot's more movies, and some TV shows.  I am of the opinion that the animated series The Clone Wars was actually the thing that was really needed to redeem the prequels, it is the best thing to hit the Star Wars universe since The Empire Strikes Back. It actually shows you more of how Anakin was actually a really talented Jedi, and not just a whiny punk who snapped and murdered a bunch of children because Palpatine messed with his head.  It shows you the complicated relationship between Obi Wan, Anakin and Padme, which really could have been even more complicated if we were telling grown up stories.  Disney ownership means there will probably be more possibility of that sort of thing.
See, the thing is, I was four when I first loved Star Wars, I am nearly 44 as of last night's viewing of Solo.  That's ten lifetimes for that little kid who first trembled at Darth Vader bursting through the bulkhead of the Tantive.  I want different things from movies now than I did then.  Even my kids are outgrowing the really childish stuff.  We were sort of relieved that Star Wars: Rebels a Disney CGI series ended.  The characters had really reached that tipping point where you started not to like their lack of development and just got annoyed with them (ala Anakin in Revenge of the Sith, and Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi). It's not that the characters were bad, it's just that they weren't allowed to really become anything.
Slowly that flaw is starting to change.  The Last Jedi, while it was not universally liked, performed a much needed function, it retired the Skywalker Saga, and in doing so it opened up the possibilities of telling new stories with better characters.  Jin Urso in Rogue one was a prototype, but she didn't outlive her single movie.  Rey very well might be moving in that direction.  Quira, Emilia Clarke's character in Solo, has enormous potential to be an actually complex character, as does Han Solo himself, and (spoiler alert) they have the good sense to bring back Darth Freaking Maul for possible further development.
Solo was a box office flop by Star Wars standards, but Disney is big enough to absorb that.  That is a good thing, because it was also probably the most coherent and well told story of the bunch.  There were only a few "boxes" to check: how Han got his name, how he met Chewbacca and how he won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian.  Solo checked off those boxes and managed to actually weave them into a story, a story that essentially fits neatly into what we already know, for instance about making the Kessel run is less than 12 parsecs.  It develops Han as a character who wants to be a rogue and a bad dude, but who is essentially a good guy.  Again, we knew those things about him, but the stories behind them make the mythology breathe better.  That's what was missing from some of the other efforts, too much box checking for nerds that already know everything and not enough storytelling.
I'm actually encouraged that Solo didn't blow the doors off the box office, because it feels like lately every Star Wars thing has to be the biggest, most significant thing ever, and that doesn't create an environment where actors and directors are free to do new things and try something risky.  Woody Harrelson played a character named Tobias Beckett, who aside from Han himself is essentially the main character of the movie.  He's a one off, but he shows you what Liam Neeson as Qui Gon Jin and Christopher Lee as Count Dooku, could have done, if they had been given a chance, if Lucas had not been so single minded about filling his movies with annoying moppets, brooding teenagers, too much CGI and Sambo stereotypes.  The galaxy far, far away, can bring in actual good actors to elevate the story and make it good for those of us who have been watching for ten lifetimes.
So yeah, I liked Solo, and as is the case with The Last Jedi as well, the thing that I am most hopeful about is where it's going to go from here.  I actually have a pretty good feeling about this.

Utterly Predictable

Whoever digs a pit will fall into it;

And whoever breaks through a wall will be bitten by a snake.

Whoever quarries stone will be hurt by them;

And whoever splits logs will be endangered by them.

-Ecclesiastes 10: 8-9

Before I had that weird dream, I was going to talk about basketball.  On Monday night I watched game seven of the series between the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors.  I was rooting for the Rockets because they were the underdog. Everybody, even Lebron James, is an underdog to the Warriors.  Mike Greenberg on ESPN says that Golden State has "ruined basketball," by simply being so dominant, because it takes all the uncertainty out of it.  For the first half of the game, the Rockets looked like they might actually bring down Goliath, but I noticed that they were bricking an awful number of three point shots.  They actually went on to set a record: 37 missed three pointers, including 27 in a row! But they kept jacking them up anyway.

The well known definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  As it began to dawn on the announcers that something really remarkable was going on, they explained that Houston, as a matter of game strategy, either takes it to the rim or shoots a three, they don't really have what they call a mid-range game.  It can be deadly, as it was during the regular season, when Harden and Paul and the lot are nailing their shots and gliding past defenders to the rack, but when you're tired and your legs are gone, your long distance shots all go clang and the Warriors get to snatch basically uncontested rebounds and do what they do best, move it down the floor and shoot your heart right out.  Golden State can look sluggish and almost inept in the first half of games, but in the third quarter, after you blow your adrenaline and the weariness starts to set in, they have you just where they want you.  That's when Stephen Curry starts to hit those dagger threes from anywhere he wants, making you run in futility.  That's when Kevin Durant starts his spidery infiltration of the upper key and hitting those no-doubt mid-range shots that Houston does not even attempt.  It was absolutely predictable.  The only thing in my lifetime that has been that predictable in sports was Michael Jordan's Bulls in the playoffs, that era felt that way too, and I can't say I liked it then either.

The really frustrating thing is though that Houston really looked like they had a shot, they were one bad Chris Paul hamstring away, but I would say they were even closer than that, because watching that game, they were simply one adjustment away: shoot from closer.  I get that the three ball is tempting and I get that it's naturally a lower percentage shot, so you expect to miss more.  It's basic risk reward, but sometimes you need to know when it's just not working, sometimes you need to see how and where it is just playing into your opponent's hands.

I have the same observation about the church in the world today.  Case in point number one: the Southern Baptist Church and its traditional complementarian approach to gender roles.  Ross Douthat does a pretty good job of summing that up for you here. The general point is that for years a certain strain of evangelical Christianity has adopted essentially the same position towards women that fundamentalist Muslims have: namely that they are to be submissive to their husbands and that their purity is of foremost importance.  There is a complicated range of expressions of this, but you can sniff it out by looking at who their leaders are: are there women preaching? Teaching other adults? Serving on the governing boards and councils? No? Then you're probably dealing with a church, who in the name of tradition, is saying that half of God's children are not as good as the other half.  They will try to cover that stench with all sorts of theological and "biblical" dogma.  They will even trot out many females who they have indoctrinated to believe it, but it is still a pretty hateful anachronism, and it leads to all sorts of malfeasance and dysfunction. Like those threes that kept bricking, insistence on this methodology is eventually going to cost you the game, and they are learning this the hard way.

Case in point number two: the prosperity gospel.  By now you have probably all heard of that "evangelist" who is trying to convince people that he needs a private jet.  Yes, that is as absolutely absurd to the majority of people of faith as it is to an atheist.  But that doesn't stop prosperity preachers from naming and claiming all sorts of materialist swag in the name of Christ.  To me, as a follower of a man who said, "Truly I tell you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven," health and wealth teaching has nothing to do with the Good News of the Gospel.  Beyond just being bemused, I think anyone who preaches that sort of Gospel is actually doing damage to the name of Jesus.  But this strategy works on people, because of "itching ears," because of the existential desperation of materialism, because people just want to believe that belief will make them rich.  Just like the Rockets believed that somehow those three pointers would start falling.

So, since I have pointed a few fingers, let me pay attention to the ones pointing back at me.  Because, in basketball, I basically have one move: dribble to the right, outside layup, I use my big body to basically bull rush past anyone.  It's predictable and effective, but it is far from unstoppable.  In the ecclesial world I am a Presbyterian, our "game plan" is pretty much the same way, predictable, effective, but far from unstoppable.  We occupy that middle ground somewhere between the high church rituals of the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians and such, and the Pentecostal and Charismatic sorts.  We are a mid-range shot kind of church.  The emotional appeals about salvation and the heart rending personal experiences of the old revival meetings are sort of suspicious to us. We sometimes admire the elegance and art of the high liturgy, like a good three point shooter, it can really give a sense of security.  To some extent, we can dabble in either one of those styles of play, but it's not our main thing.  Our game plan is intellectual engagement, social conscience and constant reformation.  The constant reformation thing is probably the toughest thing, and it was what made me even more sympathetic to the Houston Rockets, to watch them stick to their plan until the bitter end was both familiar and frustrating.  I knew they needed to change their approach, but they also felt like they should just keep working on the thing that got them there in the first place, after all it got them to game 7 of the conference finals, they had the best record in the league and home court advantage. It wasn't for nothing, but all of the sudden it wasn't working, now the only question left to answer is what now?

Yes, indeed, what now?

Dreams and Visions

I have been preaching about prophets for two weeks in a row, and this morning I woke up after a particularly vivid dream.  The notable thing about this is that I remember it vividly, and I have a sense of what it means, despite there being some definitely dreamlike features.  I don't really remember my dreams very often, so this seems to me to be worth sharing.
I was at church, it was a Tuesday morning, a fact I knew because of the cast of known people who were present. Our church has a Tuesday morning women's bible study and their husbands and other retired men are often here doing fix-it-up stuff.  So Tuesday morning can be one of those times when I get wrapped up in various projects and conversations.  Indeed I actually plan for that.  I had just had a semi-counseling type conversation with one couple from my congregation and I walked across the hall from my office into the choir room.  Immediately I was confronted by a red-headed man, who I do not actually know in real life. He was dressed in an expensive suit and he was a close talker, meaning he insisted on standing really close to me when he spoke, despite my efforts to back up.  I noticed that he had two other men with him and that they were holding bibles and some sort of pamphlet.  I couldn't quite concentrate on what he was saying because I felt very uncomfortable with his insistence on violating my personal space.  After several attempts to simply back away from him and having him simply step closer, I actually pushed him back and said, "I'm going to need you to give me a little space." To which he got this unusual smirk on his face but kept a more comfortable distance.
Once I started listening to what he was saying, my level of anger and discomfort began to rise again.  This is another strange thing about this particular dream: I was acutely aware of my own emotional responses to the events, and my reactions, including the push off were not simply reactions, they were intentional.  This man was clearly giving me a speech and offering me one of the pamphlets.  I do not remember the exact content of the speech but the gist of it was that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity were really trying to save the Christian faith from a bunch of godless liberals, and the tract he was giving me was a documentation of all the ways that conservative culture warriors were our last best hope to be the chosen people of God once again.  His argument was a over-simplified version of a somewhat more nuanced reality that we know all too well in America in the 21st century.
"What do you think about Rush Limbaugh?" The man asked me.
"I think he's a piece of..." and I paused, realizing that I was in church and that congregation members were present. "Crap," I said, "He's a bloated sac of crap."  All in all not the most beatific statement I could have made, but honest, because after all, my subconscious was running the show.
The three men became confrontational then, quoting "scripture" at me, but the thing is I knew that none of the "verses" they were actually using were actually in the Bible.  Now, I don't have the Bible memorized or anything, but what they were reading out of their books was literally the opposite of what is actually in the Bible, they were about the glorification of the strong, and the subjugation of the weak.  They were verses that challenged followers of Jesus to be aggressive, power-wielding culture warriors.
That's when I got really outwardly angry in the dream.  I started with Matthew 7: 21, "not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in Heaven." Then jumped to a series of invective statements by Jesus from Matthew 23, in rapid succession, and as I did the three well dressed men retreated down the hallway and of our office wing and out into the narthex. As we went it was like the words of Jesus were a scourge to them. As we got to the door of the church, I got to what I believe may be the root of my prophetic subconscious angst, Exodus 23: 9, "You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt."
They were silent but they still didn't want to leave, and so I simply started shouting, "Repent!" But it wasn't just shouting repent, it was singing/yelling, "Repent!" It wasn't my voice, it was Frank Black, from The Pixies song Caribou:

So take that for what it's worth, maybe it's a message from God, maybe it's indigestion, but I'm sort of leaning towards the former, because like I said, I don't really remember my dreams very often.

Building

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw - The work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the sort of work each has done.

-1 Corinthians 3: 12-13

I went to a meeting of my Presbytery last night.  For those of you who read this who are not Presbyterian, the Presbytery is the next level up the chain from the governance of the local church (called the Session).  The Presbytery is made up of both Ruling Elders (the people from the churches who are called and ordained to serve on Session) and Teaching Elders (clergy people like me).  Presbyteries are arranged by geography and in our (sort of) democratic system send people to participate as delegates in the General Assembly when it gathers every other year to do the work of the national denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA).  I am a member of National Capital Presbytery (for some reason they decided not to call it National Capitol Presbytery, even though it is essentially the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area, but hey it's easier to pronounce than my former Presbytery, Kiskiminetas).  NPC is a pretty political and corporate sort of Presbytery, because it's a big city Presbytery.

I'm not quite as connected to this Presbytery as I was to my little country Presbytery, partly because of the "big city" motif and partly because I'm a geographical outlier.  It takes me a solid hour to hour and half to get to National Presbyterian Church up in northwest D.C., so honestly I go about twice a year.  Last night was one of those times, and I picked a night where the "big city" motif paid off, we had J. Herbert Nelson, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly as our preacher.  Again for you non-Presbyterians, that's one of our highest offices; probably about on par with the Speaker of the House of Representatives in civil governance.

Rev. Dr. Nelson gave us a shining example of the best of black preaching in the Presbyterian tradition (yes, there are black Presbyterians).  He employed the intense passion, building emotion and personal illustration that the top Episcopalian Michael Curry showed at the Royal Wedding, but instead of just talking about love, he talked about the "contextual realities" of the people out there in the world and the ongoing process of reformation.  He said, "we're not dying, we're reforming," and man I tell you I want to believe that.

One of the orders of business last night was to approve the dismissal of a congregation to the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (ECO), which was formed a few years ago to receive congregations from the PC (USA) that could not abide by the growing attitude of inclusiveness towards the LGBTQ community.  This is a complicated moral and theological debate for people who are guided by Scripture, and the word "abomination" does get bandied about rather more than is healthy.

In a "big city" (read decidedly liberal) Presbytery like NCP, conservative congregations can rightly feel alienated, as did the Neelsville congregation that we acted to dismiss last night.  Our denomination has been going through the rather painful process of sorting out how to deal with the reality that our decision to fully accept and include LGBTQ persons has made many people in our world feel like they simply must seek some sort of divorce.  I have dealt with this institutionally as the chair of an administrative commission that oversaw the separation of a congregation from my former Presbytery. I have had to deal with it professionally, as people I pastor have left or threatened to leave (the latter is actually rather more painful). I have dealt with this personally, as relationships with colleagues have been strained or dissolved, as I have had to disagree with people that I love and respect.

At one time, when I knew a lot more about everything than I do now, I was fairly comfortable holding to the "conservative" position that we should try to be "inclusive" by just being nicer to LGBTQ people.  When I graduated from Seminary, openly gay people could not officially be ordained as Elders (even though they were), and same sex marriages seemed very far away indeed.  The Presbyterian Church USA has crossed both bridges during my 15 years of ordained ministry, and where 30 year old me might be troubled by that, 43 year old me actually thinks it makes a great deal of sense. I have obviously changed, the Bible does not say anything different, nor has my dedication to sound interpretation and my desire to live according to the Word of God.  What started it, I think, was the experience of profound brokenness that happened in my life when my brother overdosed, my wrestling with grief, and the sense that if love doesn't triumph over something as sinful as drug addiction and tragic as the death of a 24 year old with his whole life yet to live, then what good is it?

Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, it was the blackest emptiness that made me see the light of God's love for us.  I firmly believe that Jonathan is in the hands of a loving God, and like Jonathan Edwards described in his famous sermon, those hands do not let us go even though our raging and sinning are deeply offensive.

I had this ongoing wrestling match with the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, I kept hearing him say, "put down your stone, I'm not here to condemn people."  Eventually, and it wasn't as quick as I would like to think, I came to a place where I had to say, "alright, it's alright, I don't understand, but I'm going to make a choice to love instead of fear."

That started all sorts of trouble, it has strained relationships, led to being ostracized by some people I thought were friends and outright slandered by some. But the pain of that actually convinced me that the path of inclusion and acceptance is the right one, because it gave me some inkling as to the trauma that faces people who come out of the closet. I will never know what it is to wrestle with sexual orientation or gender identity, I have always been comfortable and at home as a heterosexual male, but I can no longer justify sorting out certain sins for special treatment.  I'm a sinner, you're a sinner, everybody we know is a wretched sinner, that's the point of God's love in Christ: that sin does not break God's ability to hold us near. Honestly, I believe that sets us free from the sin of judging others and allows us to just love each other.

I do not know how the work that the church is doing, the pain it is experiencing in order to include people who have been historically cast out by society and called an abomination by religious types, is going to end.  We are certainly experiencing pain, but is it death throws or labor pain?  I want to believe that we are reforming, turning away from hunger for power and even worldly success in favor of the Good news of the Gospel that we are no longer slaves to the Law, but Children of God.  I hope that our decision to stand on the side of love is not bringing down God's wrath, but is rather standing us up for judgment as those who care for the least and the last.  I guess what I hold on to in the end is trying to look at the example of Jesus, as the thing that we are always being reformed to be like.  Did he take the side of those who held to the rigidity of the law and insisted upon the rules?  Or did he have compassion for the broken and those who were cast out?

One of the Latin phrases that we Presbyterian types like to trot out is: reformata semper reformanda, "reformed, always being reformed." The question implied is reformed into what? The answer is always Christ. Not just tolerance, or even forbearance, something more than just being nice, love. Love has to be the thing, it has to be strong enough, it has to have the power that the Right Reverend Curry talked about at the wedding. If we are going to be able to bridge the gap between what the church is now and the "contextual realities," that J. Herbert told us all about last night, if we are going to live as the body of Christ in this world. If we are going to be reformed and not die, the love that Christ shows to us all always needs to be our answer.

Those People

He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, 

for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."

Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go - the demon has left your daughter."

-Mark 7: 27-29

We all have them.  People we are prejudiced against, the ones we think of deep down as "other." Most of us, if we are polite and decent, hide this prejudice well, and it only slips out in moments when we're most afraid and vulnerable to that "other." Speaking honestly, I have no trouble recognizing the humanity of a young black man in the line at the grocery store, seeing him as a brother and an equal, but put that same young man in a different setting, the proverbial dark alley, and despite all my best intentions, the prejudice I bear will come out at least in emotion if not in action.  It is not purely racially motivated, it is a situation in which another human being may genuinely present a threat to me and whether they are black or white or brown, a stranger in isolation is something we basically perceive as a threat, the greater the difference, the more the danger is felt.

Jesus' dialogue with a Syrophoenician woman is a particular text that speaks to the dynamics that can happen when we are confronted with the "other." Since I happen to believe that Jesus was both human and divine, I see a dynamic unfold here in which the human and the divine evolve together into something that is better by the end than it was at the beginning. The human being who was born and raised as a good Jewish boy, from a working class family, has certain expectations about Gentiles, which this woman was.  He also has certain generally middle eastern and ancient manners concerning females.  He is confronted by a woman who, out of desperation for her afflicted child, disregards all proper protocols and procedures and speaks to him directly.

Jesus the Rabbi, also as teachers tend to do, has a certain sense of his mission, and this woman, this brazen foreigner, also falls outside the bounds of that mission. Some people, including friend of mine, believe that Jesus is being intentional in his attempt to alienate this woman, to see what faith might be there.  That may be so.  It also may be that everything in his human experience is actually in the process of being refined and purified by the Spirit of God which dwells in him.  What he says is a little mean, but it is far from cruel, the animosity between Jews and Gentiles in those days was profoundly mutual.  This story, I believe, shows the bridging of human differences in a genuine way, that is not coated with any sort of magical balm to smooth out the rough edges.  The prejudice of both parties is mutual and acknowledged, grace operates, and love triumphs and the child is healed.

The Gentile woman does not become one of Jesus' followers, which would have still not been possible in that society.  The world does not change in that moment, the age old animosity between Jew and Gentile is not resolved, but human kindness is given room to shine, and the divine connection that we all share is visible for a moment.

It is a remarkable Jesus moment because he manages to cut through a lot of interference to get to that moment of grace.  Most of us have trouble with that.  I'm thinking this morning of our Imperious Leader referring to immigrants as animals.  I suspect he was talking about MS-13 and other violent criminals (at least I hope he was confining the sentiment to them), but I can't really be sure, because his use of language and his general vulgarity makes it hard even to give him the benefit of the doubt. I have no hope that Trump could exhibit the Christlike turn of grace, which would allow him to see the suffering and desperation which drives so many people to take the risk of entering this country as undocumented people.  He does not strike me as person who is particularly capable of remorse, only self-preservation, which is why, as a follower of Jesus and a fan of repentance and forgiveness, I find the Donald so difficult to respect as a leader.

As time goes by, it's not so much the policy decisions and rash behavior that I find so galling, it is the most basic failure of humility, which leads to an inability to learn from mistakes. A while back he referred to nations that struggle with poverty as $#&hole countries, now he calls people entering the country illegally animals, way back during the campaign he mocked a disabled man, I am disappointed in him for continuing to be so crass and tasteless, I am disappointed in us for simply accepting this behavior as normal.

Adventures in Big Wheeling

My father-in-law refers to people who move in certain circles as "Big Wheels." His best friend was sort of an inveterate salesman type who could keep up the banter with just about anyone, and as he owned his own business often got in on some high society events.  My father in law would sometimes just refer to his buddy as "Big Wheel," or sometimes just "Wheel." Recently, because I have fallen into the company of some folks in the community who have been working the political game on behalf of charitable organizations, I have been invited to take part in some gatherings as a part of the faith community.  This is an interesting phenomenon to me, because my church congregation is not large, nor influential.  I am not prone to "Big Wheel," behavior myself, as "networking" or perhaps you might call it "politicking," rather pushes my introversion into the red. I have learned to get up and talk to groups of people, I have learned to listen and dialogue with people, but in a room of people with their business cards in hand and intentions on making valuable connections on their minds, I'm decidedly the "littlest wheel."
Perhaps, just perhaps, this is why I keep finding myself invited to these things, to give my little speeches, three or four minutes at most (which takes a lot of work if you know anything about how I usually preach). Maybe it's because I am sort of willing to get out of the way and put something else out there, maybe it's just because people are getting to know me and know that I will show up for these things.  I don't honestly know, and I don't really care, I just know how to keep showing up.
On Monday I had the chance to meet with a group of non-profit leaders in Charles County for an audience with US Senator Ben Cardin.  As of this writing he is the Biggest Wheel that I have ever had a meaningful interaction with.  I suppose that seeing President Bush the Elder and meeting Joe Paterno on the Mall at Penn State might be bigger, but for this one, I had an audience, he was there to listen to what we had to say. I have given politicians a bad time here on this blog at times, but I have to tell you, when you see one in full function, it is rather impressive.  He used humble humor and exuded a sense that he really cared about what was happening here. He remembered names really quickly, he picked out points from what people said and seemed to digest what their issues really were.  I was impressed, but not awestruck, I understand that a lot of what politicians do is calculated to grab a room and make people feel important, but I can see how many people come to truly believe that even bad politicians are earnest and sincere folk.  As far as it goes, I came into the meeting with a generally positive feeling about the Senior Senator from Maryland, most of what I have seen and heard from him in his professional capacity sort of jives with what I feel is important. So I was not coming to this as an adversary, but I was trying to come as a prophet, which sometimes might be the same thing, but not necessarily.
Most of the people at the table had some sort of "ask," they had some concern about funding or legislation that affected their charitable work.  They also had well scripted presentations.  I had one too, one that I had worked on for the better part of two days, sort of honing and refining, which I purposefully left on my desk when I left the office to go to the event.  My reasoning for leaving my carefully prepared, exactly four minute, speech at the office is the same reason I do not bring my written manuscripts or even my notes into the pulpit with me anymore: leaving room for the Spirit to work through me. It gives me space to read the room, and address the audience fully.  Since I was sort of coming from a different angle than the rest of the room, I decided to do what I do and preach just a little, not a full blown sermon, just something that I hope could function as a sort of prophetic injection.  Since I had been given an audience with a Big Wheel, I figured I might as well take advantage of the moment.  Here is the script of what I prepared, which is slightly different from what I actually said, but covers the major themes:

I am speaking for the “faith community,” not that I am really qualified to do that.  After all the faith community encompasses Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and more variations of Christianity than I can name. So I can’t really claim to speak for everyone, but at the simplest core of what it means to have faith is the belief that we are connected to one another and to something greater than ourselves and our self-interest. My particular faith is centered on a Palestinian Jewish Rabbi named Jesus, who was labeled a troublemaker by the authorities of his day and put to death by an Empire that bears a striking resemblance to our own nation.  The statement that Jesus, not Caesar, was Lord, and giving him the title of Christ, was a political statement that caused persecution for many of his early followers.  History’s long course has brought us to a place where even those people of faith who do not call Jesus Lord or ascribe divinity to him as Christians do, recognize this itinerant preacher, Jesus of Nazareth, as a wise teacher who spoke the truth.
Jesus talked to people in parables because often times the plain truth was just too much to handle.  I don’t have time to tell a good parable so I’m just going to blitz through one of his (Matthew 20: 1-16).  There are workers who need jobs, they’re up early they’re waiting to get hired and they do, and they agree to work for a fair day’ s wage, a denarius, which in Greek was the definition of a living wage, it was “enough.” (Which is itself an important concept that perhaps we could talk about if I had more time) They start early and they work all day.  Later there are more, who also are hired and given the same wage, still later there are even more and they all get the same wage.  The ones who worked more are angry with the landowner, because they feel he has done something unfair. The point of the parable is to show how ridiculous it is for those who are blessed with “enough” whatever that is, to be angry with those who got “enough” without working as hard as they did. You know this is the point because the vineyard owner makes a point of paying the last first, thus displaying his decision that everyone gets paid equally.
Some apply this to the idea of Salvation, and if I were to use that interpretation here, speaking to a representative of civil government, I would be out of line. I do not expect the principalities and powers to ever endorse my theology.  As with many of Jesus’ parables, there is a political as well as a spiritual component to the message.  There is a critique here of a social order that was allowing those who were already wealthy and influential to continue to take more and more, while those who were last and least literally had to starve.  That’s why Jesus hides these messages in parables, because saying what he is saying outright would get him stoned or crucified. I’m going to say this outright, because in a room full of do-gooders, I’m preaching to the choir.  Poverty is a sin, but being poor is not.  A society that simply accepts poverty as a “necessary evil,” is all the same accepting evil.  But it goes farther than that.
 I think that the habit we have of disdaining the poor and pushing them further down is a sin that we disguise as virtue.  We invent all sorts of reasons, denying the actual sociological facts, to tell ourselves that poor people can just “work harder.” I’m not asking you for anything in particular Senator, I don’t even really know what to ask for, other people in this room have better ideas than me.  I believe that when Jesus said, “the last shall be first and the first shall be last,” he was giving us a hint about how we need to treat each other here and now. I know that the other folks in this room, are working to try and help people who have fallen behind and slipped through the cracks, but we could really use some help from those who have climbed even further up the ladder to the seats of power.  Know that what Jesus was really saying about he first being last, isn’t a punishment, it is hope, that those who rise and succeed and win will not forget that those who struggle are their brothers and sisters as well.

Prophetic Questions

Is America honest, or do we bask in sin?

-Kendrick Lamar, XXX

How can you say I am not defiled, 

I have not gone after the Baals?

-Jeremiah 2: 23

Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize for his latest album Damn, specifically because he asks some very hard questions. I have not had much reason to invest in much hip hop music lately, it all seems like weird club kids run amok or Kanye stroking his own ego, but an album winning a Pulitzer for the first time got me curious. Back in the day, as they say, the kind of rap music that got my attention was politically conscious and a little bit angry.  Whether it was the Black Power themes of Public Enemy or the Straight Outta Compton rage of NWA, if I was going to listen to a form of music that so emphasizes the spoken word, I wanted it to say something. One of my favorite songs of all time is a proto-rap song by Gil Scott Heron called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which laments the era of futility in America in the late 1970s.  A lot of hip hop ends up being very moment-specific, at it's best it uses a broadside slap to the head of our collective consciousness, and Kendrick Lamar has given us that, in a form that is both evolutionary and rooted.

What has dawned on me as I have listened to the album driving about in my car is that the roots of what Lamar is doing are deeper than the musical form.  He is doing something prophetic, he is asking questions, about our culture, about our shared humanity.  He creates word pictures of both the holy and the profane (and sometimes very profane) parts of our lives.  It is street language and also poetry at the same time, there is a little bit of old-time gospel preaching and a little bit of Sir Mix-a-lot vulgarity, and if you're sensitive to the vulgarity you might be tempted to write off what Kendrick has done and not hear the prophetic questions he's asking and the lament that re-occurs throughout: "Ain't nobody prayin for me."

The questions can be brutal, they dredge up the racial muck that we are trying so very hard to deny, they dredge up the images of poverty and the struggles of kids growing up without adequate parenting, they dredge up our substance and sex addicted culture. But the brutality and uncomfortable nature of the questions is what shows me the roots of what Lamar is up to: he's being prophetic, and yes, I do mean like Jeremiah and Ezekiel in the Bible, and no, that is not sacrilege.  There have been times when hip hop has bordered on this type of behavior before, but a lot of the time there was a certain insincerity about it, or maybe too much of a specific worldly agenda.  I'm dating myself, but my example is Public Enemy, Chuck D could certainly spit the questions and raise the temperature, but he was ultimately too enthralled by Louis Farakhan and the failed ideology of the Nation of Islam.  Kendrick is just asking questions, not preaching answers, because the answers are much more self-evident than we want to admit they are.

Consider Jeremiah's question, it's not asking for input, it is stating fact. They are defiled and they have gone after false gods.  That was a fact, but it was an uncomfortable fact that people did not like Jeremiah very much for bringing up. Kendrick's question: "Is America honest?" No it is not, we are lying to ourselves about a great many things. "Do we bask in sin?" Absolutely, try to tell me that we don't with a straight face, I dare you. That's how prophets work: they tell you what you already know to be true, but would rather not face.

There is only one prescription given by a Prophet: turn away from the Baals (false gods and idols) and toward the One True God. And the thing is, you don't necessarily have to be a religious type to do this. Jesus sets a path that can and should bind all of us, whether we have faith or not.  We are connected to one another; a truth that you can find in all the religions and in secular humanism as well.  Our collective existence is dependent on our ability to love (or at least care for if you prefer) one another.  Faith should help this, as we recognize a spiritual connection between ourselves, God and one another that mirrors the example of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Faith in a Creator also allows us to name the relationship we have with other humans as a blood relation, kinship as Children of God, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, and makes some sense out of otherwise chaotic and meaningless things.

In our highest ideals this nation has codified this connection into a system of laws and a democratic process. It doesn't always work, it sometimes gets messy and frustrating, but if we keep asking questions and keep turning away from our idols and towards the grace of what we can be at our best, we have reason for hope.

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore?

When I was a kid, or more accurately an adolescent, Eddie Murphy was everywhere. Eddie Murphy began as a player on Saturday Night Live and exploded from there with two feature length stand up routines: Delirious and Raw.  Eddie then continued his blitz with some very funny movies: Beverly Hills Cop, Coming to America and of course Trading Places.  Nowadays Eddie shows up in decidedly family friendly fare like Dr. Doolittle, but then he was as R-Rated as they come.  He describes in one of his stand up routines listening to Richard Pryor records in secret, and hearing words, bad words, used with an effect that was eye opening.  Eddie obviously imitated Pryor, as Chris Rock and others have, but he was the first that did it in a way that, while vulgar and not suitable for work, was still a little more tame than Pryor had been in the 1970's.  Eddie walked the line of comedy pretty well, and in the 1980's we actually had a pretty good consensus about where that line was.  George Carlin helpfully recited all the words you could not say on television and kept us on the right side of decency.
But bawdy comedy always has a place in our hearts doesn't it? Go back: Benny Hill, Redd Foxx, Milton Berle, The Three Stooges, oh yeah and if you don't think that's far enough how about William Shakespeare? You will need to decipher some Elizabethan euphemisms, but you will find lots and lots of genital humor amidst even the tragedies like Hamlet and Othello, not to mention the more outright stuff in the comedies.  A good playwright slips things in here and there to make the audience chuckle or even groan a little.  The Muppet Show and more recently Spongebob Squarepants, inject adult jokes into kids shows just to get a chuckle out of parents who are forced to watch with their kids. But humor requires us to understand the context, and in doing so, we get to be "in on the joke."
One of the funniest things I have ever seen sketch comedy-wise, were from Chappelle's Show, they were Charlie Murphy's stories about the years when his brother Eddie was a rising star and he was a part of his brother's entourage, out and about interacting with celebrities and artists like Prince and of course the unforgettable Rick James.  The recreation of several incidents involving Rick James is absolutely hilarious, but not at all PG rated so be warned before you google them (I'm not even linking them here).  Charlie Murphy recounts some outrageous behavior on the part of James and then when you are already laughing, Chappelle has sure enough gotten James himself to comment on the events.  James at first denies the veracity of such stories, but then admits that perhaps they did happen and laughs to himself: "Cocaine is a hell of a drug."  The stories are all that much more hilarious because the subject of them is present and can laugh at himself.
Another great moment in sketch comedy was the Key and Peele series about Obama's Anger translator Luther.  One of them plays the normal, straight up and restrained Barack Obama, and the other plays a loose canon who "translates" what Obama says into more emotive language. Barack Obama, not only found the sketches funny, he actually referenced Luther in the last days of his presidency, mentioning that Luther could now take a bit of a vacation.  Whether it's Rick James or Barack Obama, being able to laugh at yourself is an important part of being a healthy, fully differentiated human person.
Comedians are supposed to push our ability to do that, and being human, sometimes they fail.  In the movie Hannah and Her Sisters,Woody Allen plays his usual neurotic struggling artist and Alan Alda plays his foil, his brother in law who is already successful and more than a bit pretentious about it.  Alda's character goes on these little monologues about how comedy works: "If it bends, it's funny, if it breaks, it's tragedy." Woody Allen has often played around with the line between those two places, and in so doing discovers the fact that different people have different places where bend becomes break, but his success over the years despite it all, indicates that he generally found that same place that Murphy and Chappelle both found: the place where we can all agree that it is actually funny, even if it's not the kind of funny we happen to enjoy.
Our ability to laugh keeps us sane, which is why I am actually rather worried about our collective psyche right now. I'm worried that so much of the news cycle over the past few days has been about Michelle Wolf and what she said at the White House Correspondent's dinner. I'm worried that late night comedy shows seem to have had to take up the mantle of national truth teller (and I'm worried that Jon Stewart remains stubbornly retired). I'm worried that people are treating some insulting jokes like the end of civilization, and I'm worried that those same people actually support a guy who is President, not a comedian, who says much worse things almost every day.  I'm actually worried that the thread of rationality has been lost.
How can we not distinguish between Dave Chappelle playing Rick James and the actual person? How can we not distinguish between Jordan Peele pretending to be Obama and President Obama? (I am linking to this despite some PG-13 language because it's worth hearing)
That's a real problem. On one hand we need to get our sense of humor back and stop being so super sensitive about everything.  On the other hand we need to understand the difference between being funny and just being mean. Sometimes things that might be intended to be funny can be mean if the person at the center (Rick James or Barack Obama for instance) are not allowed to be "in on the joke." You can question whether or not handicapped or disadvantaged people have the full opportunity to be "in on the joke" that is told about them, and thus this type of humor is sort of out of bounds.  When it comes to full grown adults in positions of significant authority (like say Donald Trump or Sarah Sanders) the line gets moved though. It's not that there is no line, but they have adequate internal and external resources to shrug/laugh off whatever you might say about them. I don't feel like we should be needing to protect some of the most powerful people in the world from a cable television comedienne.  There is a line, but in the case of a White House Correspondent's dinner I think that line is really hard to cross.
We need to have comedians dance around that line.  Eddie Murphy can be funny in movies you watch with your kids and also be funny in things you shouldn't let your kids see until they are old enough to drink.  So can Chris Rock and Jon Stewart, and George Carlin (he plays the conductor on a kids TV show about trains and he gave us 1001 dirty words).  They're comedians, it is their stock and trade to play around with the line between funny and offensive, they help us see where that line is.  In that way, comedians these days function in somewhat of a prophetic role.  They show us the absurdity of life, they show us the vanity of our pride, they might just give us enough of a jab in the ribs to get our attention.  If they cross the line sometimes, so be it, that's their job, and they do it so that the people we really need to be serious and in charge don't have to.
If Michelle Wolf is mean to a couple of full grown women who have chosen to be visible public representatives of a mendacious and mean spirited administration, so be it, that's her job.  That the administration itself should be mendacious and mean spirited is the problem, not the comedienne who calls attention to it.